Pride

Lately I’ve been thinking about the idea of pride.  It’s a word I hear often, and I have conflicting feelings about its use and meaning.  So I thought I’d take a minute to put my thoughts down about it. 

It seems to me that there are at least two different kinds of pride.  They have distinctly different sources, and vastly different effects on the world. 

The first kind of pride is the destructive kind.  At its essence, this kind of pride is really about insecurity.  It’s about defensiveness.  It is the kind of pride that makes me feel a false sense of superiority, because really, I feel inferior.  At the heart of this kind of pride is fear – fear that I am not good enough, and so I have to be defensive, and degrade others.  This kind of pride leads to outward defensiveness, spitefulness, and even hate.  This pride, I think, is the kind mentioned in the Psalms, the kind that leads to destruction.   It is this kind of pride that I fear, and try to stay away from, although often unsuccessfully.

But there is another kind of pride – a beautiful kind.  I believe it is the kind of pride that it takes for the Egyptian people stand up and fight every day for democracy and freedom.  I believe it is the kind of pride that it took for the black and people of color in South Africa to wage a decades-long fight against the evil of white-enforced apartheid.  I think it is the kind of pride that it takes for a fifteen year old transgender teenager to make it through high school, up against  bigotry, hate and fear.  I think it’s the kind of pride that it takes for Mario and his coworkers to stand up for decent treatment at their jobs.

I believe this kind of pride is about the confidence, or at least the courage to declare the inherent dignity and priceless worth of each of us.  This kind of pride is a celebration of the beauty and wonder that is each of us – even in the face of societies, of governments, of churches, and of people who tell us differently.  I believe at its center, this pride is a declaration, an acknowledgement, and a joyfulness that each of us is beautifully created, and valuable and wonderful beyond all measure.   This pride paves the way for the fight against oppression. 

This is the pride that I want.  This is the pride that I have for my community, for my neighbors, and for my world.  This is the pride I hope to act out of every day.  When it comes right down to it, this is the side of the fight I want to be on; Pride in our mutual worth and dignity, and dedication to the love and justice that recognizes that worth.  This is the pride that will continue to feed me so I can organize, and build power for justice. 

There’s a passage in the Judeo-Christian creation story that says, “And God saw that it was good.”  I imagine God with a big smile, swelling with pride in the beauty and worth of that creation.